Posts about Gadgets

Haven’t been on the blog much in the last 36 hours for a number of reasons. One of them was that my son and I have wasted good chunks of the last three days trying to extend my home wireless network. If you have help, I’d be grateful.

I have a new Linksys SRX200 wireless router that works fine. But it doesn’t reach the other corner of the house: the rooms over the garage. What I want to do is use another router just like it to extend my network; I’ll connect them with a wire or without, you tell me. We tried to hook the two routers together; didn’t work because the first router grabbed the address off the cable modem and the other router couldn’t get it; it delivered junk addresses to our PCs. So we bought a wired switch thinking both would work off that; same thing happened. I would love to get both working to give strong coverage throughout the house.

Right now, after all the work, we got a Linksys wireless range extender working, I hope. But because I had such trouble getting it working, I’m nervous about that.

We’ve tried many, many things before. I had a Netgear powerline extender (one box plugs into the router and the power on one end; the other box plugs into the power and transmits the signal from there). I’d love it of that worked but it was extremely unreliable: It would not deliver a proper address until I turned off the box and my laptop wireless again and again and again. We used a Netgear wireless router with it but that was no better. I had an Apple Airport Express but never ever got it to deliver anything but junk addresses.

So, help: How can I get two wireless routers working with one cable modem (the two of them connected without or with ethernet cable)?

The Times has a good summary of the Stupid Sony Rootkit Scandal and how bloggers brought them down. I watched this from afar because I haven’t bought a CD in more than a year. CD? What’s a CD? They’re working so hard to protect a dead medium. It’s as if they posted a militia around a graveyard.

Jake and I went to the Digital Life expo in New York yesterday. Jake’s report is here. The place was insane: huge lines for those who’d already bought tickets. A manager told us that there were more than 30,000 people and it was so crowded they might have to stop people from going in. It’s beyond the boat and auto shows. It’s a tech fest. We got to meet Robert Heron, one of the regulars on TWiT, the podcast/show Jake got me to like — which, I hope, made up for my messing up and not meeting TWiT and Diggnation star Kevin Rose when I was in San Francisco.

Well, damn, Engadget reports that the new Treo is not only for Windows but also is EVDO. I got my new Treo 650 on Sprint and then had to get a separate Verizon EVDO card, each on a long contract. What a screwed up business this is that prevents you from upgrading and spending more by imprisoning you with the old.